The various orthodox churches in Ukraine are downright confusing. Kuzio does yeoman’s work to explain everything simply. Ukraine wants its church completely free of Moscow, and it’s expected to receive the Ecumenical Patriarch’s formal permission on January 6, 2019.

Rybak, a top open-source analyst at the Ukraine World Group and Internews Ukraine, challenges the conventional wisdom that Ukraine’s oligarchs will continue to dominate television for the foreseeable future.

Before any major outlet noticed, our first-rate analyst and broadcast journalist warned that the Kremlin is recruiting allies within Western states’ law enforcement agencies in order to hunt down its critics. Eristavi spoke to a dozen Russian dissidents in this well-reported piece. Chilling and worth reading again.

When footballer Domagoj Vida shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” following Croatia’s victory over Russia in the quarter finals of the World Cup on July 7, it set off an international kerfuffle. The Atlantic Council’s very own political analyst and sports writer explains the inconsistencies within FIFA’s response.

UkraineAlert’s most popular contributor explains why Putin’s strategy of plausible deniability is so effective. The West still cannot comprehend why “any rational nation would seek to dismantle the international security system, and remain trapped by the post-history delusion that Great Powers do not attack one another anymore.”

Thanks for reading, and thanks for making UkraineAlert a trusted source of news and analysis.

Melinda Haring is the editor of the UkraineAlert blog at the Atlantic Council and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She tweets @melindaharing.